Who Wants Salmon?

We had all our lines in the water around 9:15 AM yesterday, later than we'd planned due to windy conditions. It wasn't long before we had a hook-up - a salmon made a run, taking line out like crazy, making the drag virtually sing before it suddenly became unhooked. John went back for a pass over the same area and we hooked a nice brown trout which I pulled in all by myself with difficulty because the the dipsey didn't release. John then went back for another pass and we hooked this 25 lb. 4 oz., 40 inch king salmon! Our teamwork routine is working well - he takes the rod out of the rodholder, passes it off to me, reels in the other rod, then brings the fish in for me to net. This huge salmon took him all around the boat and avoided the net several times, making us very nervous. Finally, into the net it swam and John helped me get it in the boat. Seeing it in the net on the bottom of the boat was quite a thrill, let me tell you. In fact, this way of fishing is exhilarating. You troll quietly around, not even holding a rod, and when a salmon hits, the rod pounds down and the line screams out.
So, even though we were both physically tired after that salmon, we made another pass over the same area, and wouldn't you know it, like about 3 minutes later this 24 lb., 7 oz., 37.5 inch salmon hit! We were so exhausted by this time that we did something we've never done before - we quit fishing when the fish were biting! It was dead calm and very hot, too, so we took these pics and headed in. Our time on the water only amounted to 2.5 hours total! We took advantage of the fish-cleaning man in the marina and had him clean our 3 fish. He even puts them in zipper bags, well worth the $3.00 per fish plus tip. Our knife is way to short to filet these salmon. Wow, we had some onlookers, that's for sure. Many fishermen were jealous and asked us all about how and where we caught our fish. The average boat is coming in with 1 fish per long day (starting at dawn) on the water with maybe 4 fishermen.

Technical stuff: We caught them in 226 feet of water, 100 feet down. The salmon from the previous day and the brown trout were 80 feet down. We troll 2 rods at these 2 depths. We're using 10 foot Eagle Starfire dipsey rods (black dipseys) with Daiwa reels with line counters; the line is 30-pound test braided steel wire; 10-foot leaders; a white e-chip attractor with a white mirage fly and a green one with a green hammer fly. These have irridescent strips on them which flutter, some beads and 1 treble hook with a red single hook tandem rig. John did lots of online research and was able to purchase all our gear from a supplier in Oswego, NY. Trolling speed is 2.4 to 2.8 m.p.h. We've been trolling west and directly off of Oswego harbor, avoiding the fleets.

This type of fishing is thrilling, exhilarating, fun, tiring and provides freezers full of delicious salmon! It'll be fun to go out again when the weather permits.